"Then I wish _I_ could," replied Thoroughpace. "Isn't there such a thing as making _the hand engross the business of the head_?" Mr. Weasel--recollecting that in his library stood twelve thick folio volumes of manuscript "precedents," which he had been fool enough to copy out with his own hand during his pupilage, and the first year or two of his setting up in business--hemmed, and again applied to his snuff-box. "How do you get on with Aubrey in the pupils' room?" he inquired. "Why, I didn't like him at first. Very reserved, and is not without _hauteur_. Even now, though very courteous, he says little, appears entirely absorbed by his studies; and yet he seems to have something or other pressing on his mind." "Ah! I dare say! Law's no trifle, I warrant him! No doubt it's _teasing_ him!" replied Weasel, rather complacently. "Do you know I should doubt it! I never saw a man to whom it seemed to _yield_ so easily.--He's a particularly _gentlemanlike_ person, by the way; and there's something very attractive in his countenance. He seems highly connected." "Oh--why, you've heard of the great cause of _Doe_ d. _Titmouse_ v. _Jolter_, a Yorkshire ejectment case, tried only last spring assizes?--That case, you know, about the effect of an _erasure_.--Well, he's the defendant, and has, I hear, lost everything." "You astonish me! By Jove, then, he had need work!" "Shall _we_ set to work, Mr. Thoroughpace?" said Weasel, suddenly, looking at his watch lying on his desk. "I've promised to let them have these pleas by six o'clock--or the other side will be signing judgment;" and plunging his pen into the inkstand, to work he went, _more suo_, as if such a man as his pupil, Mr. Aubrey, had never existed. Weasel was not at all a hard-hearted man; but I verily believe that if a _capias ad satisfaciendum_ (_i. e._ final process to take the body into custody to satisfy debt and costs) against Charles Aubrey, Esquire, had come into Mr. Weasel's chambers to be "_settled_" as requiring special accuracy--after humming and hawing a bit--and taking an extra pinch of snuff, he would have done his duty by the document faithfully, marked his _seven-and-sixpence_ in the corner, and sent it out indifferently with other papers; consoling himself with this just reflection, that the thing _must_ be done by _somebody!_ and he might as well have the _fee_ as any one else!